Many organizations struggle to provide meaningful corporate training that helps employees grow. Giancarlo Brotto, Global Education Advisor at SMART Technologies, shares insights into common corporate training challenges in the latest episode of The Collaboration Space. Giancarlo also offers ways to keep training relevant and boost productivity.

Optimizing corporate training in the new workplace

The impact of legacy training tools and techniques on productivity

 

A common challenge for trainers is keeping employees engaged. Many organizations use legacy technology tools or techniques that employees find boring, which leads to diminished learning and productivity.

Before the pandemic, an employee would attend training onsite and sit through 8-hour sessions, often for a couple of days. Since the pandemic, training sessions have been online, and employees have been responsible for managing their own learning. 

With outdated technology and lack of guidance, employees struggle to connect the value of training to their everyday work. If an employee can’t understand the impact the training has on tasks, the worker will be less likely to apply the knowledge and won’t see an increase in productivity. Then, the time spent training was an additional loss of productivity for the employee and the organization. 

Growth and development programs should have a direct correlation to workplace activities. And because of the increase in hybrid work, organizations should optimize training to accommodate the remote and hybrid workforce.

Use these cognitive processes to optimize a corporate training program

 

Giancarlo shares three core cognitive processes that occur with learning:

  • Perception. Every individual has different experiences, so the training should acknowledge that. Organizations need to deliver information in ways that keep employees–including hybrid audiences–engaged. 
  • Attention. Employees may have trouble remembering lots of information at one time. Training content has to be dynamic to keep learners’ attention. This means considering how employees are consuming the information—in-person, at a desk, or on a mobile device.
  • Memory. Humans typically store information as short-term memory, which eventually becomes long-term memory. Employees need to relate the training to their tasks, so the training should be memorable, dynamic, and interactive.

When upgrading training programs, organizations should work to keep employees engaged, keep content simple, and future-proof the tech and training programs.

Connect corporate training to every day tasks for the hybrid workforce

 

To create a more dynamic, cross-functional collaborative workforce, the training should model real-life work. While that principle applies to all employees, it’s especially important for remote and hybrid workers to train with the tools and technology they use in daily work. 

Why? The simplest answer is that if the training uses technology and tools that employees are unfamiliar with or antiquated, they will lose interest and may not know how to apply the training to their daily routine.

If an organization doesn’t see increased productivity after a training session, ‌there may be a disconnect for employees on how to apply the training to everyday work activities. 

If your organization needs to update corporate training to accommodate work-from-anywhere employees, SMART Technologies and AVI-SPL can help. Get in touch with AVI-SPL today.